


Uprooted

by Nahvcute



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, after the war, minor character death?, older verse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 11:08:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3408308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nahvcute/pseuds/Nahvcute
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aftermath.</p><p>That is the only thing people don’t see about wars.</p><p>The after. People never ask about after the war.</p><p>They want the blood rushing details about you, the hero, fighting and risking our lives about to die or dancing the line of being alive and dead.  They ask about how you won. They ask about the war. The same war that messed you up in the first place.They want to know who’s blood is caked on your hands. They want to know every detail on how you killed them.</p><p>They don’t want the harsh ones. They don’t want to hear about how you can’t sleep at night and wake up with fresh scars since you’ve become your own enemy; the ones that wake you up in the middle of the night and you cant’ breath.</p><p>They overlook the damage that’s done to the people in it. To everyone.</p><p>When people ask me what part of the war was the most painful to live through, my answer will always be: The After.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uprooted

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this for awhile and I hope you enjoy. This is my take on what should have happened after/ A Little bit in the Blood of Olympus. 
> 
> Enjoy!  
> Ani

The nightmare always starts the moment when Gaia decided that I was a doll; she uses her hands to rip the threads of my skin and everything goes black for a second. Every time it’s a little different from there, however it always has something to do with _them_. How I couldn’t help them and how helpless I felt on the ground bleeding out.

Then I wake up screaming.

I wake up sweating and trying to calm down and my shaking only seems to get worse. They only see to get worse and worse but the nightmares have existed just as long as I can say the words “after the war” which is about six years today. I shakily stand up, walking over to the bathroom to the sink. I place my hands on either side of the sink, turning the water on and I rinse my face underneath but the thoughts keep flying through my head on how I could have changed things, on how I didn’t try hard enough.

“Get a grip, Grace,” I snap harshly to myself looking at the reflection. I know I look different and I don’t know who’s staring back at me anymore; he’s so sad and lonely. I want to fix him, I really do.

I shake the water out of my hair and walk back into the small bedroom, pulling the hoodie off the hook and pulling it over

my head. The late night runs have become a habit and a routine that I prefer not to have. The tug of my muscles working against me but actually having control over them is what makes me push. Makes me run.

But the town always looks so much nicer at night. Everything is quiet and no one is around, the lights and people of the day are gone and you can think. I pass by the places that seem to be haunted by people in the daylight. I pass the places that I’m so used to seeing and it’s slightly healing to see them peaceful, making me envy them. During these runs I have a lot of time to think and at first I hated to think about everything, how everything turned out, but now it’s the only thing that seems real in my day.

Sometimes it feels like she’s still there, in my blood, in my mind, in my thoughts. Her eyes, her laugh and she doesn’t care. She ripped my world apart and didn’t even blink. I stumble over my feet and fall into the field, the wind blowing soundlessly across my face. The grass bends under their fingertips and they welcome me, they pity me.

Free, unweighted, and alive.

I envy the way the winds can be free. At some point in time being the son of Zeus, you learn a trick here or there to talk to winds. They seem to be the only thing that I actually willingly took from my old life.They tell me a lot about what’s happened.

Annabeth and Percy got married and had a kid. His name is Leo. At first I didn’t know how to react but after a while I gave up on the thought that they really cared.

I still have the coin he made me, it’s just like my first one but Leo style. He’d probably be pissed to see me now and how I’ve done. He’d probably say say something like “I thought superman was made out of steel.” Metal, sadly, erdoes.

I finger the coin, not sure whether I want to try today. Everytime I pull out my weapon I’m fighting her again and she picks me off the ground again. I can’t breathe and it’s high off the ground. I feel like all the air has been sucked out of my lungs and I can’t do anything about it. They’re all dying and I can’t do anything.

I stumble onto the ground again, grabbing at my chest. I guess I never stop fighting her, in a way. I growl, flipping the coin, and the battle starts again. The world shifts under my feet as I confront the winds.

“Jason Grace, you are nothing. They made you feel so special, yet you are nothing.” I lunge towards her voice but she’s gone again. Her arms throw me off the ground and the impact knocks the wind out of me. “You think it’s over? No, no, it has only just begun.” I swing towards her but she’s disappeared.

I grunt out of frustration, “You were killed! _They_ killed _you_! Why are you still here?” she lets out a chuckle as I run towards her. Her body appears and she looks like a loving mother if loving mothers also like killing their kids.

“I am Mother Earth, Jason Grace, I am never ever truly gone.” I don’t know what to do with myself afterwards. This is has played out so many times but nothing has changed. The  definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, even the thought pains me.

But I’m tired and the winds tell me I fought hard against them. I don’t remember but I feel it, the soreness. I walk back to my apartment tired, sore, and numb. It’s this goddamn routine, this same thing over and over and over and over again. Nothing changes. No one’s looked for me. No one cares for fuck sakes, it’s been three years since I last saw them.

I just want something to change.

 

* * *

 

This town is strange. The people here ignore the big elephant in the room and act as if everything is fine but the town has been going to shit long before I came to it, it just so happens when I came I brought the storms with me.

It calls for great waves however, I never understood how that ended up happening. People come here a lot for that surfing junk, saying that these, and I quote, “the gnarliest waves ever created”. I wouldn’t know, I tend to avoid godly areas and the people it brings.

In the morning after the practice, after the run, I go through my routine. I put on my clothes and I walk to work, say good morning to the same people, eat breakfast at the same goddamn coffee shop, and work at the same little stand just close enough to the water to make my skin crawl.

The people who own it were nice enough to let me work there. Some weird kid comes out of no where and suddenly wants to be a generic little boy? They bought it. So now I get to have the pleasure of working all day with people who constantly dote on me then at night struggling to get to the local college in time.

It’s chaotic but repetitive. Something anyone can get used to. Sometimes I believe the town is trying to heal me, trying to take me in and piece together what’s been broken, but that’s only wishful thinking.

The new found glory in our waves has made the town busier. More and more people have started to come and explore this tiny town. I must say it this town does has it’s secrets. Maybe some good came when I came to this town.

The only part I hate is the frat boys. They come every time there’s a vacation. They sidley ask if the waves are good to ride on to which I tell them, I wouldn’t know, would you like to buy sunscreen with that? Then they ask me different questions on why I don’t ride the waves, that I live here! And again I want to snark back but I’m pretty sure somewhere in my employ guidelines there’s a rule against that but I politely smile back l and ask if they want to buy sunscreen again. Thankfully they know by the third time asking they're about to either, A- get sunscreen thrown at their head or B- snarked at until all the snark has left.

But then it’s the girls. I internally want to cry every time they giggle.

Strangely, this time it’s different when they roll in. The kids go towards me, yes ,but they actually buy sun screen.

“Hiya! We’re outta town, mind telling us where the best waves at buddy?” His New York accent runs thick in his voice and it reminds me of home. The home I left, the home I once had; everything.

“Sorry but I don’t surf man, I tend to avoid the water.” He nods and asks for sunscreen. The weird part is he actually uses it with his friends. I noticed that one of their friends is hanging back slightly sporting a black hoodie in 90 degree weather, I only know one kid who would do that.

“Oi! Captain Gloomy, c’mon we’re gonna go surfing.” He scoffs and I allow my mind to indulge and hope for the familiar gloomy boy I’m used to seeing, except his eyes are blue and his hair is brown; mine’s black haired and eyes to match them. Not-Nico Di Angelo looks me over and blushes following the pack of boys. My chest deflates and I look back at my magazine.

I should have known, I chastised myself, they’re in the past. Stop living in the past. Live in the future.

I want to say things have gotten better, and they have gotten slightly better, yet I still miss them like an aching in my chest. The future is ahead of me but it’s like I got a flat tire just in time for the right exit.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can cry with me at nah_v_cute on tumblr


End file.
